It very well could be all good if Orlando is anything near as good in the NBA Finals as it was in the Eastern Conference finals, where the Magic proved to be the best team while disposing of Cleveland, which had the league's best regular-season record.

So all the lamenting that LeBron James isn't coming out of the opposite side of the bracket from Kobe Bryant and the Lakers could be a lot of hollow crying.

The Magic proved it belongs in the Finals and showed (again) that the games aren't played on paper and fairy tales don't always come true if the guy who's overlooked is willing to punch the hero in the mouth often enough.

"We ain't finished yet, " Orlando center Dwight Howard said.

No, they're not.

Now, obviously, scaling the Lakers probably is going to prove to be a lot more formidable than was disposing of Cleveland. The Lakers aren't so one-dimensional that Orlando can do the let-him-get-his-and-stop-everybody-else thing it did against LeBron and Cleveland. They aren't so green that players will wonder what it is they're supposed to be doing, and they probably won't be as willing to allow Howard to dunk at will and hope for the best.

And they won't be on an emotional downswing. No one wearing a Lakers uniform seems all that broken up over advancing to the Finals without James, who was so out of sorts about losing to Orlando that he didn't bother to shake hands with and congratulate the victors at the conclusion of the series.

"It doesn't have who I played against on any of my rings, " Lakers guard Derek Fisher said. "It just has 'World Champions.' That's it.

"I feel very good about the three I have. And if I can get a fourth one, I'll feel very good about that one."

Certainly, the Lakers are favored to win it. They reached the NBA Finals last year primarily with the same cast of players, and the franchise has been there 30 times, more than any other franchise.

Their name was penciled in as the Western Conference winner prior to the season and even if we go so far as to call their journey rocky -- they needed all seven games to beat Houston and six to eliminate Denver -- they still are right where they were forecast to be.

Orlando? The Magic wasn't supposed to beat Boston in the East semifinals, much less Cleveland in the finals. The Cavaliers were supposed to take care of a team that needed seven games to beat the Celtics when Boston was as wounded as any playoff team.

The puppets on the Nike commercial seemed to think so.

But the Cavs didn't hold up their end, couldn't hold up their end. So LeBron's puppet gets to go on vacation, home, visit Kermit or go wherever it is puppets get to go when they no longer have commercials to prepare for.

Kobe and the Lakers begin play against the Magic on Thursday night, and Nike gets to look for a new antagonist for Kobe's puppet or to retire the concept because Orlando wouldn't roll over on command.

So we only get half of the dream matchup.

But half of it isn't half-bad. And it will be all good if Orlando is as good as it has been so far.

Soon, we might not even remember that the LeBron-Kobe pairing didn't happen. Because it's kind of hard to miss something you've never had.

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John DeShazier can be reached at jdeshazier@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3410.